Flock cuts data retention to 7 days as police abuse cases mount

Flock Safety will require all law-enforcement customers to adopt abnormal-activity monitoring and cut default data retention to seven days from 30, responding to more than 100 documented cases of police misuse of its AI surveillance cameras.

"These changes reflect years of work and deliberation," Garrett Langley, Flock's chief executive, said in a blog post. "They are not the end of that work, but simply the continuation of our commitment to both safety and privacy."

The Atlanta-based company operates more than 120,000 license-plate readers across 6,000 cities, scanning 20 billion plates a month. Under the new rules, all law-enforcement customers must adopt Audit Assistance — a tool that flags abnormal searches and locks out users pending administrator review — by the end of 2026. Case codes become mandatory for every search, with emergency overrides flagged for review.

The changes follow a Wall Street Journal investigation in June that found about 50 cities and counties have canceled Flock contracts since early 2025, while opponents have attacked cameras with saws and spray paint. The Washington Post reported at least 50 officers have been accused, charged or convicted of using the systems to stalk partners or ex-partners.

Audit Tools Catch Officers, but Loopholes Remain

Flock introduced Audit Assistance 16 weeks ago, and about one-third of customers adopted it voluntarily. Langley said the tool has been associated with arrests of several officers who allegedly abused the system. The company will also institute a "proactive lockout" that suspends access when the system detects suspicious behavior, and it will require multi-factor authentication for all logins.

The safeguards stop short of what civil liberties groups demand. "If you don't know the universe of police officers who are misusing the system, we don't know if they're catching 50 out of 52 inappropriate officers, or 50 out of 5,002," Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said. Tom Bowman, policy counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, called the package "the same 'Just Trust Us' policy with a fresh coat of paint."

Flock's new Evidence Mode lets detectives preserve specific data for active investigations beyond the seven-day window, and existing customers keep their current retention periods. The rules apply only to law enforcement; cities, neighborhoods and businesses that contract with Flock face no such requirements. Recent research has found error rates ranging from 30 percent to 70 percent in Flock camera systems, raising questions about the reliability of the alerts that drive stops.

Regulatory Pressure Builds as Cities Push Back

The privacy debate is spreading beyond individual departments. California lawmakers are weighing Senate Bill 1013, which would require public agencies using license-plate readers to train officers, maintain search logs and undergo annual audits. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has called for ending the LAPD's contract with Flock, saying the company lost the trust of Angelenos; Langley pushed back, noting the department owns its data.

The Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm, launched a database this week documenting more than 100 incidents of ALPR abuse, including romantic stalking and wrongful stops. Flock, which says its technology helps solve more than 1 million crimes a year and detected 20,000 stolen cars in July alone, argues stronger safeguards can address abuse without eliminating the technology.

Flock is a private company, so the backlash carries no direct public-market impact. But the reduced retention window and added compliance burden could weigh on future contract renewals across the roughly 12,000 agencies that rely on the cameras, and the scrutiny is spilling into the broader automated license-plate-reader sector as regulators and privacy advocates press for warrant requirements.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.